[Action | Open] Later afternoon[To say it's been a difficult few days doesn't come close to covering it. You'd think he'd be rejoicing having his bed to himself again, but all it does is remind him of how epically stupid he acted toward Lina and Saber both. And when Saber came home wearing that damn collar it was the final straw. The conversation had been abrupt, her explanation dulling his initial shock and anger into an ache of resentment that compounded the one he was still nursing.]

[So he'd taken his sword and left. Now he's in the Athletic Complex, the lightsaber Sword of Light activated to make a blade of pure, white light. Zelgadis focuses his power; the limitations on the sword make it difficult, but nonetheless he takes a swing and manages to send a ball of white-hot fire into one of the dummies he'd set up.]

[He's careful to watch out for people, so anyone who comes to see why there's lightning visible over the athletic complex won't get in his line of fire.]

It would be better to cure it. [Haven't they been over this?] It wasn't fate or nature that got me this way, it was my own naivete in believing in someone who betrayed me. And then after he experimented on me for no reason than his own ambition, he used me to try and bring great evil to the world.

Plenty bad has come of my being like this. I don't see how I'm supposed to see a bright side, or why I should even bother. I don't want to accept this, I want to be rid of it.

[He was never really angry much at all, but what little there was drains away as he asks earnestly,] Is that so wrong?

Fine. Change it if you can. I just don't think you should put your life on hold while you look for a way to do that. You'll miss out on too much, and time isn't something we always get a lot of. [Granted, she get a reprieve from dying at 19 by being here, but the point stands.] If you can play the hand you're dealt at least you're still in the game.

You keep implying that this is what I've been given by life, but it wasn't. This was done to me by an evil person. [although just how evil exactly Rezo was...] And I know firsthand that you're not above revenge against someone who wronged you. [a certain fire ringing any bells?] All I want to do is make things right again. I can't imagine anything more important.

Well it's not like I'm much better at doing things your way. [A bit of a sigh; he's sick of defending this. And despite her dismissive 'whatever' he doesn't see how he should feel anything but defensive.] Neither of the closest people I have want anything to do with me.

I used to be just like how you seem to want me to be. But after my skin changed I couldn't be the same person because no one treated me like the same person -- or even a person at all. [Until Lina, and with a few scattered exceptions.] So maybe I'm not a good person anymore and maybe I don't trust people, but it's like no one even tries to understand that I didn't have a choice if I wanted to survive.

And everyone wants me to just -- just change? It's the same thing as when people would run from me because they thought I was a monster, only instead of my skin they're judging the rest of me.

[She sighs because...she gets a lot of that. She does. Being a mutant isn't a choice either. She didn't want it at first or for awhile, and even though she didn't feel like she'd changed the way the world treated her had in an instant, and there was no going back. There was only hiding it as best she could or flaunting it so people showed their true colors up front.]

You don't seem happy, Zel. That's why people want you to change. Not because you don't fit whatever standard we have in mind. Because it doesn't seem like you're okay with what's going on now.